Mike Pence Forgives Joy Behar for 'Mental Illness' Joke About His Faith After She Called to Apologize

"You know, I give Joy Behar a lot of credit," Pence told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview airing Monday night. "She picked up the phone. She called me. She was very sincere, and she apologized and one of the things my faith teaches me is grace; forgive as you've been forgiven."

"I said to Joy, of course I forgive you, it's part of my faith experience," he continued. "But I did encourage her and I'm still encouraging her, to use the forum of that program or some other public forum, to apologize to tens of millions of Americans who were equally offended."

Pence added that he knows "criticism comes with public life," but called Behar out because he "felt it was important that I defend the faith of tens of millions of Americans against that kind of slander."

In case you missed this whole feud, the VP was ticked off last month over comments the comedian made while discussing Omarosa's "Big Brother" warning that Pence is an "extreme" Christian who believes "Jesus tells him to say things."

"It's one thing to talk to Jesus, it's another thing when Jesus talks to you," Behar said at the time. "That's called mental illness if I'm not correct. Hearing voices."

"It's just simply wrong for ABC to have a television program that expresses that kind of religious intolerance. We're better than that," Pence later said in response.

"That would make me mentally ill since I'm a Christian myself," she said when asked if she believes "Christians are mentally ill" the following day. "It would make my mother mentally ill, my mother, my aunts, my daughter, of course not. I don't mean to offend people but apparently I keep doing it. It was a joke."

A rep for Behar wasn't immediately available for comment.